***

Tonight

you are approaching Kyiv in a green train

but there is no train, or maybe it can’t be seen

and I only see your body above the tracks

a sleepy little comet

flying horizontally above the ground

and it shines, shines at me

from afar;

I worry about you so:

will you get lost in the middle of the night?

will you succeed in flying over

the packs of stray dogs,

that rummage hungrily about the steppes?

How in the world did it come to be,

that I cannot protect you in any way;

it’s as if you have been fated to fly forever

in an invisible train

following the very quiet chugging of your heart.

Translated by Mark Andryczyk and Yaryna Yakubyak